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Blast from the Past: Will the Sun Take Down the Electric Grid?

This morning, The
Washington Post ran a headline that seemed all too familiar: “As
the sun awakens, the power grid stands vulnerable.” Indeed, the sun’s
increased solar activity has been a concern for scientists and power industry
experts who recognize that vulnerability. “Since February, our star has been
spitting out flares and plasma like an angry dragon,” The Washington Post reported. And if a large solar flare headed our
way, it “could knock some of the North American power grid offline.”

The consequences could be pretty severe, affecting everything
from communications satellites to oil pipelines. According to the Post:

Communications satellites will be
knocked offline. Financial transactions, timed and transmitted via those
satellite, will fail, causing millions or billions in losses. The GPS system
will go wonky. Astronauts on the space station will huddle in a shielded
module, as they have done three times in the past decade due to “space
weather,” the scientific term for all of the sun’s freaky activity. Flights
between North America and Asia, over the North Pole, will have to be rerouted,
as they were in April during a weak solar storm at a cost to the airlines of
$100,000 a flight. And oil pipelines, particularly in Alaska and Canada, will
suffer corrosion as they, like power lines, conduct electricity from the solar
storm.

Over the past few days, we’ve been highlighting how space
technology can be used to improve our understanding of climate and
environmental change as we examine the security and foreign policy implications
of these issues. Today we turn to a much more sci-fi-ready area of space tech
and natural security: space weather disrupting electricity here on the ground.

In one of the biggest events in recent history, a major
solar event in 1989 wiped out Quebec’s grid system, melting transformers and
copper wiring here on Earth. One useful NASA site recalls that “six
million people in Quebec lost power for 9 hours.” Makes you ponder how to
ensure U.S. military bases and other critical infrastructure are less
susceptible, eh? According to a 2008
National Academies report looking into the economic and social impacts of
space weather:

Strong auroral currents can disrupt
and damage modern electric power grids and may contribute to the corrosion of
oil and gas pipelines…Electric power is modern society’s cornerstone
technology, the technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and
services depend. Although the probability of a wide-area electric power
blackout resulting from an extreme space weather event is low, the consequences
of such an event could be very high, as its effects would cascade through
other, dependent systems.

Putting this into dollars-and-cents terms, NOAA’s handy FAQ page cites two
reports that “One credible electric power outage could result in a direct loss
to US Gross Domestic Product of $3 - $6 billion,” and “A recent estimate is
that the use of good forecasts by the power industry could save the US $365 M
per year, averaged over the solar cycle.” Those are big bucks in this coming
age of efficient spending.

Luckily, many of our nation’s top science nerds, civilian
and military, are on the case to study space weather and how it may affect our
electric infrastructure – the first step in avoiding problems. Among others,
the SOHO and STEREO
spacecraft are providing constant streams of new data about the sun’s
temperament and its effects on the space weather events most worrisome to our
economic and security interests. And the interwebs provide tons of great
sources for further information about the possibilities of space weather
affecting electric power systems, past disruptions, and even the ability to receive space weather alerts.
NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has a page for electricity and
utilities-relevant info. NASA has a great space weather page
that links to news clips and other useful websites. NASA and NOAA websites for
specific spacecraft also provide real-time photos and videos and good news
updates on how the data being collected is increasing our understanding of
space weather and its potential effects.

In other words, as a great man once said, don’t panic. We
know more about solar weather than ever thanks to smart investments in space
technology and data collection that will help electricity providers and other
infrastructure guardians to minimize the prospects of destruction. And in case
they don’t, remember to keep a few candles and flashlights on hand.